


The FBI's Least Unwanted

by i_gaze_at_scully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21537250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: AU (canon-divergent) where Mulder is popular at the FBI
Kudos: 1





	The FBI's Least Unwanted

**1.** “Are you familiar with an agent named Fox Mulder?”

Suppressing a scoff, she nods tersely. 

“Yes, I am.”

Blevins looks at another man in the room and Dana has to wonder how they could even ask that, as though everyone didn’t know Agent Mulder. Fox. As though every women’s bathroom wasn’t filled with gossip about him, about his hair and his smile, his brains and bravery and… other things. 

“How so?” _How so?_ How to put this professionally…

“By reputation. He’s an Oxford educated psychologist who wrote a monograph on serial killers and the occult that helped to catch Monty Props in 1988. Generally thought of as the best analyst in the violent crimes section. He is held in high esteem by many of his fellow agents and superiors, to my knowledge.” _With the ego to match._

The man behind Blevins smiles unsettlingly out the side of his mouth, an unlit cigarette dangling from a moistened lip. Something about it raises the hairs on the back of Dana’s neck. The man lights up. 

“Well, Agent Scully, the reason you’re here is to assist Agent Mulder with his, shall we say, pet project. I assume, given his reputation, that you’ve heard of the X Files.”

“Yes, sir. They are quite a topic of discussion around the Bureau. Agent Mulder’s account are, in a way, the stuff of legend.” Too much information. But it’s true. _X Files this, X Files that_. She’s heard countless times about his encounter with the Jersey Devil, the _real_ Jersey Devil, everyone says. Too bad his only proof was the swell of tears in his eyes as he told of her (a female Jersey Devil, of course) tragic demise. 

Apparently, unbeknownst to her, Dana wasn’t the only skeptic around. 

“We are asking you to use your medical background to write field reports on your activities, along with your observations on the validity of the work,” Blevins says, tapping his pencil metronomically against his desk. 

“Am I to understand that you want me to debunk the X-Files project, sir?” 

“Agent Scully, we trust you’ll make the proper scientific analysis. You’ll want to contact Agent Mulder shortly. We look forward to seeing your reports.”

 **2.** Agent Mulder’s office is, luckily, right down the hall from Blevins’. Coveted, corner office, a wall of glass that many an agent have loitered by as Agent Mulder lobbed paper balls into his trash can. Dana figures now is as good a time as any. She straightens out her skirt, relaxes the muscles of her face into perfectly pleasant professional expression, and knocks on his door. 

“It’s open,” he calls, tossing a pencil into the air. When she enters, she sees a dozen of them lodged into the speckled ceiling, the latest showering Agent Mulder in a cloud of plaster dust. “Agent Scully, right?” 

She’d seen him around of course, not oblivious to all the reasons women fawned over him, but not totally affected either. Up close, she notices how pronounced his nose is, a small mole on his chin, and piercing eyes that she couldn’t quite name the color of. He stands slightly hunched, grins wide, brushes his hair out of his eyes in a sweeping motion. On the whole, he emulates a reserved charm, an unassuming allure. He isn’t exactly how she thought he’d be.

She sticks her hand out, surprised by the way it goes limp in the shake. She straightens her back. 

“Dana Scully,” she answers. “I’ve been assigned to work with you.” 

“You make it sound so… contrived.” He pauses, looks her over, then suddenly turns away and pulls out a step stool from near his desk. Seemingly uninterested, he begins pulling pencils out of the ceiling. 

“Actually, I’m looking forward to working with you.” It sounds more petulant than she wanted. He flashes her another grin, like he’d expected that, but was pleased nonetheless. 

“Well, I’m looking forward to working with you too. I’m impressed by your credentials - rewriting Einstein? Quite the senior thesis you wrote there. You’ll be a valuable addition to my work.”

 _My_ work. 

Despite the smile and the warmth in his eyes, she hears his message loud and clear. She is unwanted here. 

**3.** Benign is the best word she can think to describe their conversations. He’s exceedingly polite, old New England money and charm, all things gentlemanly. On a number of occasions she’s had to shirk out of reach when his hand finds its way to the small of her back. He crosses professional boundaries and she has a feeling it’s worked in his favor in the past. 

“Agent Mulder––” She starts as they take their seats on the plane to Bellefleur, Oregon. Not for the first time, he cuts her off.

“Please, call me Fox. You’re my partner now, Dana. Forget formalities.” Lounging carelessly across the row of empty chairs, he grins at her upside down.

She narrows her eyes. 

“Alright. _Fox,_ then. I’d prefer, however,” she notes, tightening her seat belt and breaking eye contact, “if you call me Scully. If it’s all the same to you.”

There’s a long pause. 

“Scully it is.”

They pass the rest of the flight in silence.

4\. She can’t help but admire the way he interacts with people. She just wishes it were genuine. People open up to him, like putty in his fingers, like puppets in a play. In her scientific opinion, it’s all bullshit. Their presence in Oregon, her performance of an autopsy on some local kid’s idea of a prank… this matter, if she could even call it that, could be handled by local authorities. It’s a waste of Bureau resources, and she intends to say as much. Especially because Mulder (she doesn’t like thinking of him as Fox) won’t tell her all he knows.

When they first arrived, he’d stopped the car and insisted they’d lost time, but he’d explain it no further. Wouldn’t tell her why he spray painted an X on the road, wouldn’t answer any of her questions. When she saw, she saw the light bulb go off in his head at the hospital, he wouldn’t tell her his theory. So she explodes.

“Dammit Mulder, cut the crap!” She yells, taking the steps as quickly as she can to keep up with him. He stops in his tracks, and for a moment, she glimpses something like hope in his eyes, honest hope. 

“I’m sorry?” His assumed shock fuels her rage.

“What is going _on_ here? What do you know about those marks? What are they?”

And finally, _finally_ the truth comes out.

“Why? So you can put it down in your little report?” She holds his gaze, puffs a breath out of her chest.

“So that’s what you think of me,” she deadpans, all the intensity of her outburst gone like air out of a balloon. His posture crumbles a bit as he rolls his neck, softening. 

“I don’t–”

“Listen, _Fox_ ,” she spits. “I am here to solve this case. I want the _truth_. I am your partner, your equal. You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to want me around, but you have to accept that I am here working towards the same goal as you. You’ve got to trust me. Because if you don’t,” she breathes on a sharp exhale, gesturing with her index finger between the two of them. “This isn’t going to work out. You might be hot shit around the watering cooler, but I have a duty to find the truth, to help these people, and that’s what I intend to do.” 

When she storms off, her face is beet red, her pulse threading wildly, her temple sweating. He could report her for that, certainly have her off the X Files at minimum. And maybe he should.

 **5.** _They’re just mosquito bites. Don’t overreact, Dana, they’re just, they’re–_ –

She gathers her robe tightly around her, collapses onto the bathroom floor. Her partner is keeping her in the dark and suddenly that darkness is gnawing at the edges of her sanity, telling her that whatever is happening to those kids is happening to her too. 

Her rational brain knows it could be anything else. But here, on her first field assignment, thousands of miles from home and utterly alone, she is terrified.

She jumps, nearly crawls out of her skin when there’s a knock at the door. Shakily, she gathers herself up off the tile floor. 

Lightning crackles brilliantly behind him when she opens the door. His face is turned down, his clothes soaked. 

“Can I come in?” He whispers. She lets him in. 

“I just, I wanted to say I’m sorry. I… hey, hey are you okay?” Despite her best efforts, Dana’s still shaking a leaf, evidently noticeably so.

“I’m fine, Mulder.” He doesn’t correct her. 

“Do you want to sit maybe?” She shakes her head, and he rubs the back of his neck. “Okay. You know, I don’t actually like people to call me Fox.” 

“Why not?” She asks.

He shrugs, looking out the window at the storm. “It’s a dumb name, always hated it. Made everyone call me Mulder. But when I got sort of, well, when people started noticing me at the Bureau, it was a way to set myself apart. Unique. I’d do anything, let them call me anything, if they’d keep supporting my work.”

There it is again, _my work._ She wraps her arms around herself, suddenly aware of her current state, her bathrobe, the accelerated beating of her heart.

“If you want me off this assignment, I–”

“I don’t,” he insists, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. She doesn’t shirk away this time, just looks at his hand, and he takes it away. “I really don’t. You’re… this sounds, you’re not going to like this, but you’re the first agent that hasn’t, uh…”

“Fawned?” 

“Fawned,” he says with a shy grin, a grin that doesn’t feel as forced as the rest. She arches an eyebrow and he laughs.

“I like that you think I’m full of shit,” he admits. “I like that you call me on things, that you ask a lot of questions, that you assert yourself. You probably think I’m shmoozing again, but I really do think you’ll be a valuable addition to my… to the team. As a partner. My partner.” 

“How flattering,” she says indignantly, but she’s softening. If he knows it, he doesn’t prey on it. They look at each other for another moment, thunder booming, the pitter patter of rain on the thin roof in their ears.

“Well, uh, that’s really all I wanted to say I guess. I’d certainly consider it a professional loss if you chose to leave the X Files.” He shifts his weight with a hand on the doorknob. “And a personal one, too. I could stand to be taken down a peg.” A self-depreciating grin replaces his usual flirtatious one, and the last of Dana’s iron will crumbles. “I think you’re a great partner, Scully. Night.”

“Mulder, wait–” She says, placing a hand on his arm. “I want you to look at something.”


End file.
